A conventional manner of making a road or other paved surface is to combine a hot bitumen as a binder with aggregate to create asphalt, transport the asphalt to a paving site and lay the asphalt at the paving site while the asphalt is still hot. Recent advancements in the paving of surfaces with asphalt have included use of polymer modified asphalts that contain an adhesive agent to allow the asphalt to be applied at a much lower temperature. These polymer modified cold asphalts permit a greater distance between the asphalt mixing plant and the paving site, which is desirable in many remote locations. Other advances include the mixing of pigments such as titanium dioxide into bitumen to change the colour of the asphalt, development of bitumen made from organic matter (bio-bitumen) and creation of clear bitumen. Conventional bitumen is black, but the blackening pigments may be removed during the production process to produce clear bitumen.
In the paving of surfaces, particularly in northern latitudes, it can be advantageous to prevent heat conduction to the ground under the paved surface. For this reason, coatings have been developed that reflect incident solar radiation. These coatings have been found to be useful in preventing undesirable sub-surface heat conduction, but the coatings tend to adhere poorly and become ineffective. A variety of reflective asphalt compositions are also known such as disclosed recently in U.S. patent publication No. 2008-0168926 and going back at least as far as U.S. Pat. No. 3,291,011, along with many others.